Smith Micro Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMSI) Consumer Group today announced the immediate availability of Poser® Pro. Building on the global success of Poser® 7, long used by digital artists and hobbyists to create 3D images and animations, Smith Micro developed Poser Pro with a feature set and functionality geared for professional content creators within studio and production environments. To save users time, resources and development costs, Poser Pro offers advanced features that include scene-hosting plug-ins for popular 3D environments, as well as a 64-bit render engine, COLLADA™ support and advanced network rendering.

Poser Pro delivers a powerful, yet easy-to-use 3D character design and animation tools that help artists integrate custom and pre-built characters into professional projects and production pipelines. Poser Pro lets artists fine tune light, shadow, color and detail on figures, and ships with distributable 3D characters that are specially designed to provide a starting point for scene development, thereby saving production time. For comprehensive content and creation, Poser Pro offers the sophisticated character functionality and features of many higher priced products on the market.

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Enter your work in the HOW International Design Awards and join the ranks of award-winning designers from around the world. One Best of Show winner will score a free trip to the 2009 HOW Design Conference (round-trip airfare, hotel and conference registration) and an award to be presented at the conference. All winners will see their work in HOW’s April 2009 International Design Annual, get $100 discount to the 2009 HOW Design Conference and receive a nifty certificate.

Categories range from annual reports to letterhead, and from miscellaneous promos to 3D objects such as gifts, wearables and more. Work must have been created between 1 January 2007 and 1 September 2008. Deadline is 1 September 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

This year represents HOW Magazine’s 10th Annual Interactive Design Awards. Enter your work in this competition to win a slot in HOW’s huge April 2008 Design Annual and to receive a $100 discount toward registration for the 2009 HOW Design Conference. One ‘Best of Show’ winner will be prominently featured in the April 2008 Design Annual and will be a guest at the 2009 HOW Conference - including round-trip airfare within the U.S., hotel and registration!

Categories range from business-to-business Web sites to “Miscellaneous.” Work must have been created between 1 January 2007 and 15 July 2008. Deadline is 15 July 2008, so get cracking! Visit the site to learn more.

The National Organization for Women Foundation is hosting a poster contest to celebrate the Love Your Body Campaign. The grand prize winning poster will be used as part of a national campaign to challenge the media’s use of violent, drug-addicted, starved, surgically-enhanced images of women and to fight against industries that profit from women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies. Entries are accepted from all countries.

Prizes vary for different categories. One category prize winner will be selected as the grand prize winner to be reproduced and distributed nationwide as the official 2009 Love Your Body Campaign poster and featured on the NOW Foundation web site. The grand prize winner will receive an additional cash prize of $600. Deadline is 1 December 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

The “Tolerance – A Global Challenge” project embodies a number of activities which are meant to contribute to a graduate improving of the society as a whole, giving special attention to the young population between the age of 18 and 28. Its goal is to bring the ideas together, giving the youth a chance to express their beliefs and thoughts through “Tolerance – A Global Challenge” by creating a ‘poster.’ It will have a direct effect on the society by opening new horizons and giving a strong motivation for the youth to work towards a better future. This project should promote the poster as a mean of expressing these ideas among the youth.

The competition is open to art and design students registered at an educational institution for art and design including disciplines such as fine arts, graphic design, communication design, visual communication, media design and other related disciplines. There’s no limit for nationality. Entry deadline is 15 May 2008. The poster should preferably be in English, German or French; however, poster texts in all other languages will be accepted. Prizes are award in Euro. Visit the site to learn more.

Advancing its reputation as the quality leader in online education for creative professionals around the world, Sessions Onlinesm Schools of Art and Design announced today it has received the 2008 Best Practices Award for Distance Learning Programming from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA). Sessions’ Graphic Design Master’s Certificate Program won on the strength of its extensive creative and technical graphic design curriculum, one-to-one student mentoring and dedicated faculty comprised of renowned graphic designers.

The award was presented at the USDLA Annual International Awards Ceremony held on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.

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